IETF Logo Mail Archive

Re: ietf-nntp Issue: number range rollover

Chrisy Luke <chrisy@easynet.net> Tue, 31 December 1996 17:26 UTC

Received: from cnri by ietf.org id aa09352; 31 Dec 96 12:26 EST
Received: from ACADEM2.ACADEM.COM by CNRI.Reston.VA.US id aa13829; 31 Dec 96 12:26 EST
Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by academ2.academ.com (8.8.4/8.7.3) id LAA05877 for ietf-nntp-outgoing; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:24:04 -0600 (CST)
X-Authentication-Warning: academ2.academ.com: majordomo set sender to owner-ietf-nntp using -f
Received: from academ.com (root@ACADEM.COM [198.137.249.2]) by academ2.academ.com (8.8.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA05872 for <ietf-nntp@ACADEM2.ACADEM.COM>; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:24:02 -0600 (CST)
Received: from core.easynet.net (root@core.EASYNET.NET [193.131.248.173]) by academ.com (8.8.4/8.7.1) with ESMTP id LAA02447 for <ietf-nntp@academ.com>; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:24:00 -0600 (CST)
Received: from vorbis.easynet.co.uk (vorbis.noc.easynet.net [193.131.248.254]) by core.easynet.net (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA25747; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 17:23:51 GMT
From: Chrisy Luke <chrisy@easynet.net>
To: USENET news manager <newsmaster@ucs.cam.ac.uk>
Cc: "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive@demon.net>, ietf-nntp@academ.com
Subject: Re: ietf-nntp Issue: number range rollover
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 17:24:03 GMT
Organization: Systems Group, Easynet Ltd.
Message-ID: <32f44961.113826806@core.easynet.net>
References: <199612282249.WAA15532@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
In-Reply-To: <199612282249.WAA15532@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99f/32.299
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Sender: owner-ietf-nntp@academ.com
Precedence: bulk

On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 22:49:00 +0000 (GMT), USENET news manager
<newsmaster@ucs.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>(1) If anyone's reading news via NFS or direct local spool access on the
>server (yes, it still happens!), the news server has no way of knowing 
>when clients have stopped using the old numbers.
[etc]

You should probably stipulate that "this is bad", or have some other
mechanism for indicating to file-based clients that the numbering has
changed. Readers are going to have to be adapted anyway...

...so why not rewrite all the readers with an agreed maximum HWM and
rollover to 0 like a FIFO buffer. It's obvious when this is the case -
the HWM is less than the LWM. If IBM could code it into a 16kb PC BIOS
ROM for 16-byte buffered keyboard handling I'm sure you can implement
it with 32-bit numbers in a news system. No renumbering required [tm].
It's all a question of the maximum HWM being agreed on.

This then requires little other adaption of the existing systems,
server and client.

The only thing I can think of right now is modifying "article read"
lists to be purged of numbers that fall below the LWM. Other than
that, very little needs to be done.

Chris.

== chrisy@easynet.net, chrisy@flirble.org.uk, chrisy@etsiig.uniovi.es
== Newsmaster and Senior Systems Developer for Easynet Group Plc.
== Someone once said A Flirble is like Christmas. Only more so. With
== less of the fuzzy bits and more of the haze.      They were wrong.

v2.8.7 | Report a Bug | By Email